What's for Dinner?

I figured it has been a while since I’ve offered a food-centered blog, and since “What’s for dinner” is on my mind, it seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to offer some thoughts about.

Even if it still doesn’t feel like summer here, I’m hell bent on cooking like it is. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve whipped up gazpacho (while we were housesitting since they had a blender and we don’t), tabbouleh (a new recipe that “cooks” the couscous with lemon juice), tzatziki, couscous, and tomato salads. And for dessert: a big watermelon, of course.

In a nod to the actual (as opposed to hoped-for) weather that rarely breaks 65 degrees, I’ve also made vegetable soup, which is normally a fall dish, and it was the soup that never ended. I seriously think it lasted a week or more—it just kept getting stretched and stretched with new broth and/or veggies, and somehow kept tasting ok.

This last weekend, we headed to one of our favorite markets: Joinville. It is more on the edge of the city and the prices are much cheaper than our beloved (but pricey) nearby rue Mouffetard market. At the Joinville market there is always a lot of shouting by the vendors of “one euro, one euro”, which is my litmus test of a good market. Basically, if everyone is quiet, it’s a lot more peaceful, probably more relaxing, but you pay for that. I like knowing the vendors really want my business.

So, for 20 euros, this is what we procured:

-½ a watermelon

- 2 kilos of peaches

- 4 avocados

- 1 head of good lettuce (iceberg thankfully doesn’t exist in France)

- 1 kilo tomatoes

- 1 small melon

- Bundles of mint, parsley, basil and coriander

- 4 onions

- 4 eggplants

- 4 enormous bent cucumbers

- 3 heads of garlic

- 1 red pepper

- 1 green pepper

- 2 sweet peppers

- 2 hot peppers

- 4 lemons

Clearly, this is more than enough veggies for Josh and me for the week and I relish the challenge of using every last bit of it. So here, here is what is on my menu for the week with said ingredients.

For dinner tonight, it’s couscous with red peppers, onions, sweet and hot peppers, tomatoes and cucumbers along with tzatziki and a bit of lamb. I also bought these little tiny marinated hot peppers stuffed with feta that are simply fab.

For this week, I’m envisioning recreating a Portuguese garlic and bread soup I loved in Lisbon (that’s where some of those three heads of garlic mentioned above are going) or a French soup called aigo bouido, which uses at least 16 cloves of garlic and isn’t harsh at all. The eggplant will be a main course at least one night. I’m contemplating making an eggplant souflee, but I might decide that its too advanced. As a backup, I’m thinking stuffed eggplant might supplant the usual roasted eggplant stacks that I’ve already served Josh a couple of times. I have to admit, I’m fond of those eggplant stacks—they’re my own twist on my friend Becky’s wonderful eggplant recipe that she would make for me when we lived together in Virginia many moons ago.

Every night, there will be roasted veggies and a few salads that both include and exclude lettuce. There will also be fruit—we each had 4 slices of watermelon last night—no room in our small fridge so we have to move fast!

Bread continues to be an issue in August. What we are finding is mostly adequate, but soon enough, our baker will return. Fortunately, Josh picked out one of his best cheese selections since we arrived at the cheese shop this week.. I especially love the fresh goat cheese with fig, the aged Gouda (which almost tastes like Parmesan), and this creamy goat cheese that tastes a bit like butter. There are also a few others, but those are the memorable ones to me.

With the summer slow season, I’ve also used this time to dive into some new food experimentation. With the weather providing me some inspiration, I’ve made French onion soup that I think was one of my best dishes ever and the Beef Bourguignon was tasty, but I just can’t have a recipe that requires constant tending for five hours. It joins the ranks of “Dishes too needy to make”, which has at least one other member: risotto.

Our foray into Middle Eastern cooking was inspired by a tasty lunch with two friends of Bobi’s: Sheryl and Sheldon. Upon return, Sheldon send me an electronic version of a Syrian cookbook and I’ve both read it and used it for inspiration.

Another source of inspiration: my mother. My vegetable soup resulted from a “911” call to my mother in which I said, “What should I make for dinner? I’ve got no vision!”

Speaking of vision, I really couldn’t live in Paris without my borrowed Julia Child cookbooks. I use them weekly. They explain what French cuts of meat mean (who knew “faux filet” was sort of like a strip steak?) and for general French baking techniques (how many eggs *do* I need for a quiche?). I also think Barefoot Contessa’s French cookbook is pretty solid and has been a helpful addition to my Parisian library.

Dessert also deserves at least a small note. It’s sadly the part of dinner I’m really the least interested in, much to Josh’s dismay. I think I can now make a respectable tart, but I gotta tell you, my heart isn’t in it. A good dessert to me is one that can be whipped up as an afterthought. Normally, we just skip dessert—we don’t need it and I don’t think of it, but lately, I’ve found that a few spoonfuls of this wonderful artisan honey (Sea lavender, which tastes like taffy made from honey) has been the perfect ending to my dinner.

So, that’s all from Rue Broca this week. It seems right to sign off with a Julia Child quote, “Some people like to paint pictures, or do gardening, or build a boat in the basement. Other people get a tremendous pleasure out of the kitchen, because cooking is just as creative and imaginative an activity as drawing, or wood carving, or music."

Yep, I wouldn’t recommend coming to any concert I’m singing in, or bothering to see any picture I’ve painted, but I would suggest trying to make it to any dinner party at the Gibsons.

sPg

August and Artesian Wells

Since we have arrived, Parisians have been “warning” us about August. They told us how everyone leaves, no shops are open, how it’s possible to walk down the middle of large streets because there are no cars out driving. They then usually continue to tell us of their August vacation plans, which interestingly enough usually seem to involve a trip to the States.

As August drew closer and closer, when we were asked where we were going for the month, we said “Nowhere” and tried to explain that essentially taking a vacation from a vacation was absurd and frankly, we were intent on staying in Paris and enjoying the city.

After we agreed to dog sit for some friends who live across town in the 15^th arrondissement, Josh and I joked that we could now say, “We decided to holiday in the 15^th”. But somehow, I don’t think the Parisians would get our joke.

A usual response by Parisians to our reluctance to travel during this time is to look at us with honest pity and suggest, ‘Well, perhaps you can get away for a day or two.” It’s funny—there seems to be more understanding of my poor French than of our decision to stay put.

And then August arrived. For a few days, we were skeptical of this true emptying out of Paris. We still saw people and they weren’t all tourists, but something happened yesterday—everyone seems to have really disappeared.

As we were walking Chaco the dog across town in a neighborhood a bit more upscale than ours, it was a literal ghost town. We walked for 20-30 minutes before we saw an open café or bakery—something that can usually be counted on every block or two. As I went out to get groceries for dinner yesterday, I knew I would have to walk a while to find an open bakery and even then, I couldn’t be sure I would be thrilled by the bread.

Of course, not everyone leaves. One newspaper said 60% of Parisians leave, but what they forgot to mention is that the remaining 40% are especially unhappy about being left to deal with tourists and obviously insane Parisians who don’t choose to exercise their right of vacation.

The customer service we’ve experienced in Paris, which up until now has been truly welcoming and open, has dipped quiet a bit in the last week. From the bakery to the café, if they are open, someone will eventually help you, but not usually with a smile.

But for us, this is our time to be true tourists again. Each week we pick a new part of Paris to explore and we spend a full day being tourists. We’ve seen some really neat things. My favorites have been the Chateau de Vincennes (a castle built in the 13^th Century by Charles V at the edge of Paris)--and the Basilica of Saint Denis (a church where all the French kings are buried, from Clovis, the first real king of the Franks, crowned in the year 481, to the guillotined Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

We also visited a park that was once a large Citroen car factory and is now full of trees and fountains. Josh took a hot air balloon ride while we were there (I chickened out since I wasn’t sure I thought I would like the heights). We’ve also had a lot of ice cream (even if our favorite ice cream shop is closed for the entire month, we’ve managed to find a few other vendors), seen a few movies (including the Simpsons and Harry Potter, with French subtitles) and even spent a few hours here and there sitting down in a café reading.

One of the more random things we’ve ever visited is a true artesian well right in Paris. The well has been known for over 100 years and people come from throughout the city and the suburbs to fill water bottles since the mineral water from the well is said to have restorative powers. You know you have time on your hands when you trek 30 minutes for water, and even consider it fun!

In general, we don’t really think of ourselves as tourists any more, but for August, I’m happily changing our status from “temporary expat” to “long-term tourist”. And heck, with our temporary tourist designation, I don’t even feel badly for not being able to speak French very well and wearing tennis shoes out sometimes. Just for emphasis, today I am wearing a t-shirt I dare only to wear in August. It says, “Everyone loves an American girl.”

Parisian life for everyone will speed up in a few weeks. We will begin to work normalish hours again and we hear that the “rentree,” or return to work and school after vacation, is a big event. Several people are promising to check in to say hello after “the return”, but until then, I’ve got a picnic to pack and a guided tour to catch.

sPg